Whether you run a Fortune 500 company or a startup, one of the most important things you can do is align your company’s talent to your mission. If employees have skills and abilities that are not being used, they will be unable to contribute effectively. In addition, your employees may not feel fully engaged in their work or truly valued by your company.
Even though most employees have to work because they need a paycheck, they still want to do something meaningful with their lives. By building a strong mission and using your company’s talent correctly, you can motivate your employees and give them a sense of purpose.
Define Your Mission
When a company has a strong mission statement, 81 percent of stakeholders say they will trust the company’s leadership team. In comparison, only 54 percent of stakeholders trust the company’s leaders when the organization lacks a strong mission statement.
This illustrates the importance of having a well-defined mission. Once you know what your mission is, you can tailor your values, codes of conduct, and policies to match it.
Employees will work harder if they have a purpose in their work. By determining your company’s mission, you can give your employees something to work toward. When your employees know why they are working on a project, they will be motivated to work harder and make it better.
Start by looking at what makes you different. Do you offer a unique product? Are you trying to help the world? How will your company’s work impact those around you? Then, figure out how to include this information in your mission statement.
Acquire the Necessary Talent
Choosing a purpose or mission statement also helps you figure out your goals. You can set milestones and overarching goals that help you achieve your mission. Then, you can look for the right traits and talents in your employees.
When you know where you are going as a company, you can figure out what kind of talents are necessary for reaching your goals. While some of your team members will already have these desired traits, you may also need to hire new employees to get everything you need.
Set Goals
When you run a company, it is extremely important to set clear, well-defined goals. You should always set SMART goals. These are goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
By setting goals, you create a timeline. Deadlines motivate people to reach and achieve their goals in a certain time frame. Setting clear goals ensures that everyone knows what they have to do and when they have to have it done by.
Start at the Top
Goals, ethics, and values all trickle down from the leadership team to the lowest level worker. When you decide to create an alignment strategy, you have to train your leadership team well. You need to get everyone who holds a leadership position to understand your objectives and why they exist.
Sometimes, the only way to get your leadership team on board with your mission is to hire new staff members. Then, you can train your new managers to carry out your objectives and values. Once your leaders are hired and trained properly, they will train workers to meet the same expectations.
If you are struggling to get the right managers, you may want to make changes to your compensation strategy or employee perks to attract the talent you need.
Track Performance
Even once you have the right people hired for each position, your job isn’t quite done. You have to make sure your workers follow through and actually work on achieving the goals. There are a number of ways to see if your plan works. To start, you should make sure you are tracking employee performance and results.
Performance tracking may be as simple as looking at sales numbers, training costs, and similar data. It may also involve doing weekly performance meetings with each employee in a one-on-one situation.
Online software platforms like Teamweek can help you set performance goals for each employee or project team. Then, you can check out the online charts to see how well each employee is doing at achieving their unique goals.
Develop Employees
For your company to be successful, you have to constantly develop your employees and improve their skills. Employee perks like college tuition or on-the-job training can increase your employees’ abilities and make them even better at their current jobs. It can also equip them for future positions within the company as they become ready to move up.
The right perks also make it easier for you to retain employees long-term. As you develop your employees’ different skills, keep an eye out for potential leaders and give them advancement opportunities when possible.
Maintain a Positive Workplace Culture
Your mission can improve your strategic alignment. It also makes it easier to have a safe, positive workplace culture. With a positive culture, your employees are able to work on getting things done instead of worrying about other matters.
Employees do not want to stay in a toxic environment. If your company culture is too negative, you will struggle to keep long-term employees and will develop a gap in your talent base. Through a happy, productive culture, you do not have to worry about replacing your workers on any sort of a regular basis.
Over to You
Your mission says who you are and what you want to accomplish. To succeed at achieving your mission, you need to get all of your team members on board. By taking a few simple steps, you can help your employees be more productive and motivated.